STAGE PLAY
FRACK!! (The Mountain Music Comedy Spectacular)
Here’s the funny thing about FRACK!!: After my first play, Abomination on Bolt Mountain (which, mind you, was only a 45-minute-long play, was darkly gothic, and had a light four-actor cast), I thought, you know what… how about doing a true full-length comedy musical with 10 actors, with original songs (and choreography) and music performed live each night by a full band? Yup, that makes sense.
Well, thanks to the tenacity and the equally poor decision-making of the guys at WV Collective, that’s exactly what happened, and FRACK!! (The Mountain Music Comedy Spectacular) was born. Because for such an exhaustive undertaking, it only stands to reason you need an equally exhaustingly long title.
After the regional success of Abomination on Bolt Mountain, the goal was to again tackle contemporary issues affecting Appalachia, but this time with the power of soooooong! Luckily, between the WV Collective and myself, we had the musical connections and resources to make a musical (recruiting songwriter J. Scarborough and regional musicians from Long Point String Band, The Kind Thieves, and Leeroy Greene and the Meanies); so we somehow figured it out (which is wild to think about looking back at it now).
About the story: Things are tough all over for Jim Cunningham. A single father who recently lost his job as a truck driver for Piney Fork Coal, Jim struggles to make ends meet while raising his two teenage kids. As Jim begins to believe he has reached the end of his rope, he is visited by a peculiar representative from a gas fracturing company known as Grendel Corp. Their offer to Jim is simple: All of his money problems can go away with one seemingly simple stipulation…only they can decide where on his property to put the gas well. Much to Jim’s dismay, he and his family must cope with the unfortunate reality of having a gas well in the middle of their living room.
Between 2016 and 2019, FRACK!! was produced three times in conjunction with Treehouse Arts Ensemble and WV Collective. It premiered at the Tamarack Appalachian Music & Arts Festival before moving to The Raleigh Theatre and Playhouse in Beckley, West Virginia.
words: JC Lacek
director: Robby Moore
music director: Jason Lockart, Jon Hawkins
original songs: J. Scarborough
music performance: Long Point String Band, The Kind Thieves, Leeroy Greene and the Meanies
production company: WV Collective, Kid in the Background, Treehouse Arts Ensemble
actors: Zachary Bolen, Ashley Traybor, Chris Cohenour, Tiffany Jenkins, Korey Tedder, Jamie Smith, Sarah Dodson-Osborne, and Gerald Hayden
PRESS
The Raleigh Playhouse and Tamarack are set to present The Mountain Music Comedy Spectacular “FRACK!!”
- Mountain Media